Since we first applied for membership of the European Community in 1961 there has been confusion about the implications of membership for Irish neutrality.
It is true that the 1970 White Paper upon which our application for EU membership was based explicitly recognised that "as the Communities evolve towards their political objectives, those participating in the new Europe thereby created must be prepared to assist, if necessary, in its defence". Moreover, all four of my predecessors as Taoisigh committed themselves unequivocally to support for European defence; the most specific of these commitments being made by Charles Haughey in March 1981.
In the course of rejecting a motion that sought to affirm "the principle of neutrality in Ireland in world affairs", he told the Dail in unambiguous terms that "political neutrality or non-alignment is incompatible with membership of the Community and with our interests and ideals". Ireland, he said, would join European defence when we joined the EMU and when our level of per capita income was at least 80 per cent of the EU average; two conditions that have, of course, been met some time ago.
That would seem clear enough. But, first of all, none of these commitments extended to membership of the North Atlantic Alliance and NATO, to which any European Defence arrangement must certainly be linked in some way.
And, second, after the change of government in June 1981 Fianna Fail totally reversed its position, in the evident hope of creating tensions between Fine Gael and Labour in government. However, this Fianna Fail neutralist policy, persisted in by some in the party right up to the last general election, eventually rebounded on it.
Ray Burke's elevation of Partnership for Peace into a phoney neutrality issue during the 1997 election campaign misled our present Taoiseach into promising a referendum on this matter; an issue that, of course, had nothing whatever to do with neutrality. From that promise he had to ???????????resile most awkwardly last year.
Now, however, as a result of the way in which discussions on European security and defence have been going, it looks as if the embarrassment created by political game-playing with this issue during the 1980s and 1990s is about to be dispelled.
A clear distinction seems now to be emerging between, on the one hand, external defence policy, which has always been and must remain a matter for NATO, and, on the other, European security policy, the maintenance of peace and the preservation of human rights within Europe, for which new procedures need to be devised.
What has precipitated a fundamental rethink of the European security issue has, of course, been the events of Bosnia and Kosovo. These tragic developments of the 1990s demonstrated in the starkest possible way the incapacity of Europe's present military arrangements to cope adequately with the kind of violence, and even genocide, that marred the western Balkans for almost all of that decade.
First, the military equipment of Europe's own armed forces, which was designed to be deployed in conjunction with those of the US in a possible defensive war with the Soviet Union, proved totally unsuited to the problems faced in former Yugoslavia.
It was simply morally unsustainable for Europe to continue to depend upon the US not just for assistance with its external defence, which is a vital American interest, but to protect its own peoples from massacre and ethnic cleansing.
In the past the development of a European security capacity, even within NATO, had been strongly opposed by Atlanticist members of the European Community; most notably Britain and Germany, which feared it might weaken US commitment to the external defence of Europe.
What has now changed all this has been a combination of the Yugoslav experience, and the emergence in Britain of a pro-European Labour government faced with a public opinion that does not permit it for the moment to join EMU and adopt the euro.
The action taken in Kosovo was led by Tony Blair. And his role in this matter gave him the authority, and the motivation, to reverse Britain's traditional hostility to the emergence of a distinct European force within NATO, which would have the capacity to act in a crisis without American involvement, but making use of NATO physical assets.
Moreover, by taking an initiative in relation to European security Mr Blair would be able to claim a share of European leadership, from which Britain's abstention from the EMU had hitherto debarred it.
It was this combination of considerations that led Mr Blair 15 months ago to propose a joint Anglo-French initiative to enable the European states to put into the field within a period of 60 days a 60,000-strong force if the security and safety of European citizens was threatened.
How does all this affect Ireland?
First, it offers an opportunity for our Army to become voluntarily involved in a European peacekeeping and peace-making force. Second, it now appears likely that any parallel but distinct measures that may emerge relating to the separate issue of European defence are likely to provide for exemption from Article 5 of the NATO and WEU commitment to mutual defence.
This is, of course, the element of these treaties that many Irish people have resisted as impinging on our military neutrality. A provision of this kind is needed not merely to meet Irish preoccupations but also to satisfy concerns of some of the three latest entrants to the Community, Austria, Sweden and Finland.
Hitherto we have been faced with an uncomfortable conflict between, on the one hand, the commitments to ultimate participation in European defence given by my four predecessors as Taoisigh, and contained in the 1970 White Paper that provided for our accession to the EC, and, on the other hand, the resistance of much of Irish public opinion to defence commitments that might impinge upon military neutrality.
Now, almost miraculously, we look like being got off this awkward hook by events in which we ourselves have had minimal involvement. Moreover, it seems quite likely that the legal provisions needed to give effect to these new structures may already be present in the Amsterdam Treaty, and may require no further treaty negotiations, signatures, ratifications or referendums.
If this turns out to be the case there will be deep sighs of relief in political quarters over these developments, the concluding stages of which will certainly be watched attentively by all those concerned with the development of our foreign policy.
gfitzgerald@irish-times.ie